Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
handled on their journey from farm towholesale outlets the better.Trans-
portation therefore had to be fast, smooth, and climate-controlled in
order to be able to deliver ''fresh'' fruit throughout the calendar year in
temperate climates. Significantly, the Armour Packing Company, an early
innovator in shipping refrigerated meats, was among the first large-scale
enterprises to establish fruit packing plants in California in order to fill
refrigerated cars on their return journey east. But refrigeration and rail-
roads were insu
cient to overcome the intrinsic perishability of fresh
fruit. HarrisWeinstock, a London-born merchant, and G. Harold Powell,
a New York-born horticulturalist, played leading roles in encouraging
early-twentieth-century growers in California to standardize their prod-
ucts and form what historian Steven Stoll has called ''corporate coopera-
tives.''
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Inaprocessthatanticipatedthefutureoftheexportbananatrade,
Powell devised fruit packing techniques based on closely supervised fruit
harvestersandpackerstoensurequality.Inthe1940s,Californiacoopera-
tives incorporated chemical baths into the packing process in order to
prevent the growth of mold on citrus during transit.
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As was the case
with bananas, a desire to lower the chance of spoilage and standardize
quality played a key role in prompting a reorganization of the California
fruit trade.
In addition to transporting and physically transforming plant ma-
terials into desired commodities, shippers and processors also developed
discourses about ''quality'' as part of an effort to standardize production
processes. Standardization was central to achieving and maintaining the
economies of scale that enabled corporations to turn profits. Forexample,
historian César Ayala argues that the Havemeyer family dominated the
''sugar trust'' that formed in the United States in 1887 largely because its
refinery was able to produce both high-quality ''cut loaf'' sugarand ''low-
grade'' sugars. The Havemeyers and other sugar refiners ensured accept-
ableprofitmarginsbyworkingtocontrolthepricemarginsbetween''raw''
and ''refined'' sugar. They successfully lobbied the U.S. federal govern-
ment for tariff schedules that favored the importation of unrefined sugars
known as muscovadoes.
32
The tariffs reflected the political powerof the U.S. sugar industryand
also the power that the United States government exercised over Cuba
during the years of the Platt Amendment (1901-1934). They also reflected
the premium that U.S. mass markets placed on white sugar, a preference
in sweeteners apparently transplanted to North America from Europe.
At some point in the eighteenth century, sugar refiners began grading
raw sugar based on color and appearance in accordance with a system
